The Second Mother

Synopsis: Val (Regina Case) is a live-in housekeeper and nanny to little Fabinho, son of wealthy Carlos (Lourenco Mutarelli) and wife Barbara (Karine Teles) who live in Sao Paulo. Her own daughter, Jessica, is being raised by relatives elsewhere. The years roll by and Fabinho (Michel Joelsas) is about to take entrance exams for university while Jessica (Camila Mardila) decides to come to Sao Palo for the same reason and to see her mother. Initially the family welcome Jessica but soon the unspoken class barriers within the household are under challenge.

Anna Muylaert's film is a showcase for the acting prowess of Regina Case, who is so believable in every gesture, look and spoken word that  it’s hard to believe she’s acting. The character she portrays is at once homely and affectionate, and yet all the time subservient and constrained by her position in society. Whatever the family members require, from meals being cooked and served to simply fetching a glass of water, she is their go-fer. The confined settings of her daily circumstances, ranging from the narrow stairs and corridors to (mostly) the kitchen and her tiny bedroom serve as visual metaphors for the life Val leads.

By contrast Carlos is a rich man who has inherited his money. Although with a reputation as a trend-setting liberal, he and his somewhat snooty wife Barbara constantly reinforce the status quo.  But when Jessica turns up everyone’s values are challenged. A forthright young woman and a keen advocate of social equality, she is allowed by Carlos to take the guest room and even invited to sit at the table and lunch with him, something Val sees as unthinkable particularly as for Jessica Carlos and Barbara are simply people with whom she is temporarily staying. Gradually the young woman becomes more and more outraged at what she sees as her mother’s unwarranted subservience.

Despite what one might think, none of this is done in a heavy-handed way.  The theme of class and people’s “place” in the world is a constant but this is interwoven with the issue of what it means to be a mother, a topic which is subtly explored in several scenarios through the film. Because Val has been absent for much of Jessica’s life, the girl never refers to her as her mother, only as Val, whereas Fabinho is more attached to Val than to his own mother. Thus do the social and the personal affect each other.

The Second Mother is a beautifully acted, thoroughly engaging film that delicately looks at the general issues of class prejudice through the specifics of one family’s awakening to its own complicity in it.  

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